Janessa's PinWheels
Janessa's 10th Angel Birthday
Hope's 7th Angel Ticker
Jason's 6th Angel B-day Ticker
Rae Anne 6th b-day Ticker
Our Anniversary
Saturday, July 4, 2015
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Johnathon Michael's Angel Birthday June 30th
Happy 4th Angel Birthday
Johnathon Michael!
<3 <3 <3 <3
Sunday, June 28, 2015
Saturday, June 27, 2015
The Smiley Face
I'm pretty proud of this smiley face I got in the
mail the other day. For the past 2 years
I have been receiving some awful letters in the mail every 3 months from the
power company telling me what a failure I am because I use "more power
than anyone in my whole neighborhood!!!!"
In the state of mind I've been in for the last couple of years these
letters have sometimes reduced me to tears of feeling like yes I am a failure
at everything or extreme anger that they are judging me against my neighbors--which
isn't fair because I have more kids than most of my neighbors and I home school
some of them and the others do an online
charter school so they are here with laptops--so YES I am using more power than
my neighbors because there are a lot of us home most of the day!!! I've gone to great measures in my anger to
destroy these letters!
So how did I
reduce my consumption of power to earn a smiley face from the power
company???????????????? Did I follow
their useless advice of things like don't use your dryer just hang your wash
outside to dry---REALLY???!!!
NOPE--didn't take their advice at all--we finally ran out of our supply of
light bulbs that I've been hording for the last 8 years because I didn't want
to pay $6 per light bulb for leds. Well,
over the past 3 months we have been slowly replacing our regular light bulbs
with the expensive led light bulbs and BINGO--our power consumption instantly
went down including a reduction in our monthly bill of $60 a month!!!!
If only I'd known this years ago I could have
saved so much money and frustration and earned myself a smiley face letter
instead of the guilt trip letters that have not helped my emotional state of
being at all. Who knew how much a smiley
face can really make your day! :)
Friday, June 26, 2015
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Week 8 of My Grief Workshop
This weeks topic face to face with grief colors really got me thinking. For me grief stole all the colors in my life and left me with just black. Before I loss my babies I didn't like the color black and would have never worn it. Now I wear it a lot--still don't like it very much, but, I've grown comfortable and acceptable of it now. I wear black to outwardly show the world I am hurting and to express my anger over the unfairness of life and just plain sadness. Problem is people don't see that at all--they think I'm trying to be fashionable--had someone tell me I looked really good in all black??? WHATEVER!
When I loss my first baby, Janessa, at 36 weeks--stillborn unknown cause, I first wore black on her first angel b-day and I painted my fingernails black with a coat of silver glitter on top. A couple of months after that I miscarried my baby Hope at 10 weeks. I again turned to my black fingernail polish to paint my fingernails and my toenails again with glitter on top. I kept my toenails painted black every day for a year to express my sadness and anger over losing Hope Abigail. In 2013 I miscarried another baby Jason and in 2014 I miscarried another baby Rae Anne. Each time the black fingernail polish came out. So I guess for me all the emotions that have come out with grief all come under the color of black and glitter. I know glitter isn't a color, but, I have always used some sort of glitter polish, gold, silver, clear, to represent the hope and peace and joy that are buried deep inside me underneath all this blackness of grief.
For my art journal entry this week I got out all of my old black and glitter fingernail polish and created my "master piece"! It was actually very therapeutic to create with my fingernail polish today.
When I loss my first baby, Janessa, at 36 weeks--stillborn unknown cause, I first wore black on her first angel b-day and I painted my fingernails black with a coat of silver glitter on top. A couple of months after that I miscarried my baby Hope at 10 weeks. I again turned to my black fingernail polish to paint my fingernails and my toenails again with glitter on top. I kept my toenails painted black every day for a year to express my sadness and anger over losing Hope Abigail. In 2013 I miscarried another baby Jason and in 2014 I miscarried another baby Rae Anne. Each time the black fingernail polish came out. So I guess for me all the emotions that have come out with grief all come under the color of black and glitter. I know glitter isn't a color, but, I have always used some sort of glitter polish, gold, silver, clear, to represent the hope and peace and joy that are buried deep inside me underneath all this blackness of grief.
For my art journal entry this week I got out all of my old black and glitter fingernail polish and created my "master piece"! It was actually very therapeutic to create with my fingernail polish today.
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Saturday, June 20, 2015
PinWheels for Angel Siblings Dragonfly, Elena Rosalie, and Athena Rose
Athena Rose
Elena Rosalie
Dragonfly
Alexandria Michelle's Angel Birthday June 20th
Happy 17th Angel Birthday
Alexandria Michelle!
<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Thursday, June 18, 2015
Tuesday, June 16, 2015
Monday, June 15, 2015
Finding Peace?
Went up to the cemetery last night to take Janessa some of the flowers from our yard. I don't know why it never occurred to me that I could make my own rose petals from roses in our yard. Loved how it turned out!
I was hoping to find a little peace and calm up there because I had a really bad panic attack at church yesterday. I haven't had one this bad in a long time. I was visibly shaking and tears were streaming down my face by the time I ran out of there. I cried all the way home and cried for another 30 min. trying to calm myself back down. Unfortunately, our stake decided to switch all of our sacrament meetings from being the last meeting to being the first meeting starting yesterday, so I had to go back up to help in my primary class. That was really tough.
I feel really bad that church has become this place of torture for me again instead of a place of peace. I couldn't even find peace at the cemetery because there was a large group of people all there having a party--their kids were running around and all the adults were sitting all over the graves laughing and talking loudly--AT A CEMETERY??!! So we decorated her grave, sat there for a few minutes looking at Janessa's pictures and then we left. I felt kind of bad as we left. What kind of mother leaves her baby alone among loud obnoxious strangers? Me and my dead baby that's who.
Sunday, June 14, 2015
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
The Dreaded Question
I'm beginning to really HATE that question of how many kids do you have? I never know how to answer it. I thought I had finally come up with a way to answer it including Janessa in the count aloud and then mentally including Hope, Jason, and Rae Anne, but, last night when I got asked that question I found myself again only accounting for my living children and not including my angel babies. I always feel like it is the right thing to do at the moment because I just don't feel like explaining my whole life to everyone, but, afterwards I always feel so guilty, and so ashamed that I didn't account for my 4 angel babies.
That question has gotten so complicated for me. If I account for all of my children then of course the next question is what are their ages and I either give an age range and let them wonder or I give a quick explanation about my angel babies which almost always ends with blanks stares and a sudden change of topic. Even in the BLM world I'm really careful to not say how many kids I have because I don't want to make those of you who don't have any living children feel bad and I don't like being judged for the amount of living children I do have.
I feel judged for including my miscarried babies in the count because in the area I live miscarriages are treated like you have a zit and no big deal or that it wasn't really a baby just a bunch of cells that didn't form right and that it will come again as another baby. Well, my "its" are not mistaken bunches of cells or a no big deal zits--they are my babies--they were wanted, loved, and missed and I got pregnant with each one of them and went through a mini labor and delivery with each one of them. But, if I try to explain that to normal people who don't understand I'm told I'm crazy and need more therapy and more stress/depression pills. Wish we lived in a world that was accepting of dead babies, but, until that time I will live with that true number of children I have in my heart--picking and choosing who I will tell it to. I guarantee, that when I die though in my obituary that number of children will be the true amount and it will say I was preceded in death by 4 children, Janessa, Hope Abigail, Jason Nephi, and Rae Anne.
That question has gotten so complicated for me. If I account for all of my children then of course the next question is what are their ages and I either give an age range and let them wonder or I give a quick explanation about my angel babies which almost always ends with blanks stares and a sudden change of topic. Even in the BLM world I'm really careful to not say how many kids I have because I don't want to make those of you who don't have any living children feel bad and I don't like being judged for the amount of living children I do have.
I feel judged for including my miscarried babies in the count because in the area I live miscarriages are treated like you have a zit and no big deal or that it wasn't really a baby just a bunch of cells that didn't form right and that it will come again as another baby. Well, my "its" are not mistaken bunches of cells or a no big deal zits--they are my babies--they were wanted, loved, and missed and I got pregnant with each one of them and went through a mini labor and delivery with each one of them. But, if I try to explain that to normal people who don't understand I'm told I'm crazy and need more therapy and more stress/depression pills. Wish we lived in a world that was accepting of dead babies, but, until that time I will live with that true number of children I have in my heart--picking and choosing who I will tell it to. I guarantee, that when I die though in my obituary that number of children will be the true amount and it will say I was preceded in death by 4 children, Janessa, Hope Abigail, Jason Nephi, and Rae Anne.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Wednesday, June 10, 2015
Kindergarten Trigger
I'm noticing that I have an extreme sensitivity right now to people talking about Kindergartners. I'm kind of surprised at this because I thought because I home school my kids that I would be immune from the "Kindergarten Trigger", but, it is hitting me nonetheless. I felt a stab wound at church hearing a happy 5 year old talking about going to Kindergarten next year and then at the dentist today hearing another 5 year old talking excitedly about going to school next year. Then it hit me again as I filled out my home school affidavit and there is that blank line that should have Janessa's name, her real b-day 4/04/10, and her school grade Kindergarten. That stupid blank line that will stay blank and empty.
When does this end??? All these age triggers??? When I loss Janessa 5 years ago I never imagined that I had been thrust on this never-ending grief trail that is full of triggers that normal people don't get or understand and expect you to be "over it" by now. When your baby/child dies you didn't just loose that day with them, you loss all the future with them and that is sometimes very overwhelming.
When does this end??? All these age triggers??? When I loss Janessa 5 years ago I never imagined that I had been thrust on this never-ending grief trail that is full of triggers that normal people don't get or understand and expect you to be "over it" by now. When your baby/child dies you didn't just loose that day with them, you loss all the future with them and that is sometimes very overwhelming.
At the prize center at the dentist there was a little 5 year old girl pointing out all of the prizes to my youngest living daughter. As she happily talked to my daughter I got to glimpse what life would have been like had Janessa lived as these 2 girls stood side-by-side looking at all the prizes. It made me happy and grateful for this little glimpse of life that will never be, but, also very sad about what we are missing out on.
Saturday, June 6, 2015
Friday, June 5, 2015
Wednesday, June 3, 2015
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
End of School Year
That phrase should be causing me to be excited and anxiously awaiting my freed up time after this Friday, but, instead I feel sad and upset. The end of this school year is the end of an era and decade for me. I have been homeschooling for the past 10 years come this Friday. After this Friday I will only have my youngest living child that I will be homeschooling because all her older siblings will be doing an online charter school. It is good--it frees up my time and there will be less stress for next year, but, the way I have been doing homeschool, my group study units are all going to be changing because they are meant for a group, not, just an individual.
The problem is I shouldn't just have one child that I am homeschooling. All of Janessa's classmates will be headed off to Kindergarten come August of this year and she should be my other homeschooling student. I should be digging out the Kindergarten Unit I have used for the past 3 kids. We should be doing Froggy Math adding and subtracting little frogs from boats and logs. We should be doing Hooked on Phonics little reader books and games as she learns how to read. But, none of that is happening because she never came home from the hospital and was buried in a cemetery instead. I'll never get to see her write her name or her excitement of reading her first word. Janessa's older sister now has to homeschool alone for the next 3 years--just like she plays alone a lot because everyone else in our house is a teenager. Stupid death I hate what you have stolen from me and our family. I hate all the things that our family is missing out on.
So yes, instead of being excited for this school year to end, I am dreading it. I don't want Friday to ever come because I don't want this school year to end. I don't want to feel the emptiness next August when we start school up again knowing that Janessa should be here as part of my homeschool "GROUP".
The problem is I shouldn't just have one child that I am homeschooling. All of Janessa's classmates will be headed off to Kindergarten come August of this year and she should be my other homeschooling student. I should be digging out the Kindergarten Unit I have used for the past 3 kids. We should be doing Froggy Math adding and subtracting little frogs from boats and logs. We should be doing Hooked on Phonics little reader books and games as she learns how to read. But, none of that is happening because she never came home from the hospital and was buried in a cemetery instead. I'll never get to see her write her name or her excitement of reading her first word. Janessa's older sister now has to homeschool alone for the next 3 years--just like she plays alone a lot because everyone else in our house is a teenager. Stupid death I hate what you have stolen from me and our family. I hate all the things that our family is missing out on.
So yes, instead of being excited for this school year to end, I am dreading it. I don't want Friday to ever come because I don't want this school year to end. I don't want to feel the emptiness next August when we start school up again knowing that Janessa should be here as part of my homeschool "GROUP".
Monday, June 1, 2015
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